


you who bares all your teeth in every smile

by aiineslin



Series: over hill and dale, tide and wave [1]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21858088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiineslin/pseuds/aiineslin
Summary: what sort of fucking mercenary didn't know how to pick locks?
Series: over hill and dale, tide and wave [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578367
Kudos: 16





	you who bares all your teeth in every smile

**Author's Note:**

> been languishing in my drafts forever  
> ive got so many unfinished fics of eli's adventures man  
> and i think i need to go back to poe

The first time Durance saw the Watcher blast a door open with her brain was a very memorable one.

Splinters of wood flew everywhere. Some stuck in his beard. More stuck in his hair.

“What the absolute _fuck_ ,” roared Durance, brushing frantically at his beard.

“Now _that_ is something I’ve never seen before!” boomed the over-friendly, overly-large aumaua the Watcher had picked up at the gates of Caed Nua.

Aloth and Eder did not say anything; they wore calm, unruffled expressions. Aloth picked a stray splinter from his hair.

Durance was quite worried at this display. Was this a common occurrence? How many things had she blasted apart in their short time together that they did not blink an eye at this?

The Death Godlike shot him a thumbs-up, her teeth bared in a friendly grin. The insides of the dusty shack were laid bare in the weak light of the dwindling day.

“Here’s our campsite for tonight!”

In the distance, the familiar moan of shades startled from their rest rose.

The party turned as one, raising their weapons in a practiced, fluid movement.

“A pox on you, Watcher!”

*

The shack was cosy enough, once they had cleared out a space to lay their sleeping blankets down. When the preparations were done, as one – the party looked at the gaping space where a door _had_ been. A pause, and then Eli said, “We’ll take it in turns to keep watch.” She produced a neatly tied bundle of sticks from the depths of her coat. “Straws, anyone?”

Kana had taken it on himself to root out a pile of dusty, half-rotted ledgers left to languish in a cupboard built at the very back of the shack. This had evidently been enough to shut the aumaua up for a few blessed hours, though every few moments, a thoughtful “I _see_.” would sound from his little corner. 

While Eli busied herself with preparing a pot of tea, Durance cornered Eder as best as he could in cramped quarters.

“She doesn’t know how to pick locks,” declared Durance flatly.

“No,” said Eder amiably, picking at the little bit of gristle caught betwixt his front teeth. “Doesn’t. The two of us don’t know either.”

“I can hear you talking about me,” called Eli cheerfully. “It’s a very small hut.”

Durance ignored her.

“How,” he began slowly. “Have you three _idiots_ been looting your equipment?”

Eder opened his mouth, and Durance headed off any excuses before Eder could even begin. “Don’t you lie to me.” He pointed an accusatory finger at Eder’s boots. “There’s _blood_ on them.”

Eder scuffed the incriminating boots on the ground, getting dust and dirt over the tell-tale reddish-brown crusts on its side. “We’re poor travellers out to save the world, what the hel do you expect, Durance?”

“A Watcher who claims to be a mercenary,” hissed Durance, his face reddening from the sheer _ridiculousness_ of the situation. “To know how to pick a lock. Have you _ever_ met a mercenary who didn’t know how to pick a simple fucking lock?

The words died on Eder’s tongue before he could get them out, and the blonde man frowned, as if suddenly realising how _odd_ the situation was. “Yeah. Well. Eli doesn’t.”

“I’ve gotten by _very_ comfortably without picking locks,” Eli announced. She jangled the golden bells on her bracelet pointedly.

Durance sucked in a deep breath, put a hand to his nose and pinched the bridge of it, hard.

He was undergoing a trial. This was to be expected. Yes, this was but a trial.

“Not on my watch.”

*

Caed Nua was a fucking nightmare.

Awakened souls, bandits, giant spiders and dust, _dust_ everywhere.

 _Boom_ , went another poor door. _Boom,_ went their chances at sneaking up on a pack of unsuspecting bandits.

“If Eli knew how to pick locks,” shouted Durance as he beat a bandit around his head. “This would not fucking happen. We’d be _stealthy_.”

“I like to make an entrance,” Eli said to the world at large. Her bow thrummed, and an arrow buried itself into the eye of an unfortunate bandit attempting to sneak up on Kana.

“A _pox_ on your bloody entrance,” Durance managed to get out before he had to block a sword strike.

*

Unsurprisingly enough, Maerwald turned out to be a madman.

There was another battle (yet again), which left Durance covered in elemental debris. He had known the Watcher for less than a week, and he had somehow been dragged into more battles than he had encountered over half a year.

After they took the Keep, the crew had decided to split up for a while.

Enforced time spent sticking together in a ragtag huddle for a few days in order to avoid being murdered would put a dampener on being sociable.

Kana and Aloth went scroll-hunting, to gather all the literature they could find and start putting them to order in the ruin of a library. Eder took to the ruined gardens, claiming some gardening would do him good.

And Eli?

Durance went looking for her.

There was an idea that had been brewing at the back of his mind for a good few days, ever since he had discovered that the Watcher didn’t know how to pick a damned lock.

He found the Watcher on the ramparts.

“Are you a fucking mountain goat,” Durance snapped at her as he picked over rubble and ruin. “Couldn’t you have smoked in a place that’s more accessible.”

“I like the view,” Eli said. “Look, Durance.”

The sun was setting; the sky lit in a watercolour painting of fiery reds and oranges. Dark clouds amassed in the furthest horizon.

For a moment, Durance looked.

His gaze flicked to the Watcher. Her pipe had fresh toothmarks worried into it.

He remembered Maerwald and his stories, his descent into madness, the weight of a Watcher’s sight driving him towards a twisted, bitter grave.

 _Thunk_.

He set the object he had been carrying on to the ramparts.

The practice lockpick kit was well-used, as evidenced by the oily prints that slicked its surface.

Eli turned, canting her head to the side quizzically as she looked at the kit.

“You,” pronounced Durance. “Are going to learn how to pick a lock.”

“I don’t have to,” said the Watcher. “I have you with me, Durance.” And here, she smiled winsomely at Durance. The effect was ruined by the smoke-stained yellow of her crooked, oddly sharp teeth.

Durance massaged at the sudden knot of tension that had developed at the left side of his head.

“ _No_.”

*

“This is very difficult,” complained the Watcher, holding out the very unpicked practice lock.

Durance tugged it from her limp grip, turning it over in his hand before looking up, dark eyes narrowing. “You did not even try. Are all Watchers as useless as – don’t smile at me like that.”

Perhaps the winsome smile could have worked on a blushing, round cheeks of a delightful young maiden. It did not work on Eli. At all.

“Durance, it’s difficult.”

“It’s not meant to be easy – actually, no, this is in fact very easy.” He shook the practice lock at Eli. “I’ve had enough of your laziness.”

“She isn’t going to learn, Durance,” advised Aloth, passing them by. He had a scroll tucked under his arm. Aloth and Kana had spent much of their time shuttling between the sleeping quarters and the library, until Kana gave up all pretence and holed himself up in the library with a sleeping blanket and a lantern. “She isn’t going to learn as long as you are travelling with her.”

“I’m a priest,” he said. “Not a fucking lockpicking machine.”

“But you’re clever enough to multi-task, Durance.” Eli patted him on his arm companionably. “You are so very clever. Unlike poor, stupid me. Who doesn’t know how to pick locks.”

“Hngh.”

*

“Durance!”

Eli had unearthed yet another treasure chest. She nudged at it with a boot and winked cheerfully at Durance.

“Does she do this on purpose?” he asked Eder.

The farmboy paused in his cleaning of his blade, and he blinked slowly at Durance, amusement flickering in his pale eyes. “What do you think?”

*

Having a Keep does make life a little easier.

One of the ways in which it made life easier was that it housed a little kitchen and a cellar, which the ragtag band of companions that Eli had amassed ensured that it was stocked reasonably well – one thing the cellar never lacked was a steady flow of alcohol.

He poked at the fire in the kitchen, watching it cast little harmless sparks. At the edge of his hearing, he heard the groan of the great hall’s door opening. It didn’t open too far. Just a little.

Durance paused, his hand reaching out to find his staff.

Sentient woman chairs who were connected to the very bricks that made the Keep or not…

The minutes ticked by, and a familiar head popped itself around the doorway, and Eli said, “Oh. It’s you.”

“So you can move quietly when you want to,” Durance said. He had heard no bells, the tell-tale tinkle which usually heralded Eli’s arrival.

The Watcher shrugged, sidled around the doorway and stepped into the kitchen proper. She wore no golden accessories, and the only thing she held in her hand was her pipe. A sword was strapped to her side – more for show than anything, Durance knew. The Watcher preferred chopping people down with strange blue blades that burst into reality with a thought.

“Seems imprudent to go walking in the forests after dark, jangling like nobody’s business.” She settled herself on to the table, noting the mug of warmed ale that Durance had been sipping on. “You are hungry this late at night?” Her gaze drifted to the staff. For a moment, Eli’s mouth opened, and then she wisely shut it.

“What about you?” Durance shot back, with much less of his usual fire. A bit of ale would do that to a man. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No,” replied Eli. And for a moment, the cheery exterior dropped, and Durance marked the dark eyebags that had collected under her one visible eye.

He studied her for a moment. Watchers were an aberration, but –

“Ale helps.”

“I get hangovers far too easily. Oh, I know, I know – I’m an ex-pirate, I shouldn’t be talking about _hangovers_ –“

“Practicing at the lockpick kit is another option.”

“It’s so _boring.”_

 _“_ Which is precisely why you’d _sleep_ ,” snapped Durance. He prodded a finger in Eli’s direction. “I know you haven’t thrown it away.”

“It’s there, sitting on my bedside table.” She sighed, leaning back in the chair, putting her feet up on the table. “A reminder to my utter ineptitude at the dexterous arts.”

Durance took a longer swig from the mug.

*

“Durance, Durance, hey.”

“Watcher, a moment. I have pressing business to attend to.” The head of his staff found itself embedded in the belly of a bandit, where it burst into flaming life. He turned his head in the direction of Eli’s call, and said, “What chest do you want me to unlock now, huh? Fucking lazybo –”

“ _Look_ ,” Eli was holding up a pair of bent lockpicks. An opened chest lay in front of her, revealing its contents – a collection of sad silver coins and most likely, counterfeited jewelry.

“Oh,” said Durance. “Oh my.”

He was so awed that he almost missed the bandit at his feet taking the chance to lunge at him with a small knife that had been hidden up his sleeve.

 _Thunk_.

The bandit went down, for good this time, a burning blue mind-blade protruding from an eye.

“ _Yeah_ ,” said Eli, grinning hugely, spinning a mind-blade on her fingertip. 

*

He still had to pick the locks of more securely warded chests.

But truly, it was all good. 


End file.
